Weekly News

Our family news.

We spent the last 2 weeks with family, family, and more family. It was great, but tiring, and we're glad to be back on a schedule. We're still staying up late nights (we're enjoying our tiny family time), but otherwise, our house is back in order. Thank you, everyone who came, for coming. Anyone who didn't come, you're more than welcome to drop by on us, with or without advance notice. :)

Rob is trying to lose weight, and has already lost some weight. The last 2 weeks, however, were a small setback on working out. We just didn't have a lot of time or priority for that. So we're getting back on track with that, too. It helps Rob's knee a lot to go walking and lifting weights and all that stuff. The doctor cleared him for doing anything he wants to, except things like racquetball and such. It's nice to see him working as normal.

P&G Rotation

Rob's rotation at P&G has been a slight struggle. He's not doing there what he wanted to be doing. But they're going to get him into the lab next week helping with the dead animals (you don't need extensive training to work with dead animals, aparently). He said they are giving him a little training today so that he can be ready for going into the lab next week. In the meantime, he's been helping them edit their data. He thinks it's exceedingly boring, but he's been taking music the last few days and that's been helping. It's also good motivation to get the PhD done. When he has his PhD, he'll be hiring people to do the work he's doing right now. It's grunt work.

Miciah and D

Miciah and D did play wonderfully together. They're enough older that I think they just loved every moment. There wasn't much time where we needed to separate them, as there was in October. I think by the end of 2 weeks Miciah was expecting D to stay forever. She didn't understand why D had to go back home. :) And D finally was liking me and letting me help her do things that originally only Grandma could do. D has a killer smile and such a warm personality that I didn't want her to go home, either. And though I had to keep from laughing during each of her prayers, they were so genuine and so real that I loved every moment that she prayed. Things like, "I can't jump on the bed. Grandma said so." and "I miss my Mom and Dad and that's the truth." and "Today was a good day. A good day." and (my favorite. This one was REALLY hard not to laugh at) for some reason, "Cock-a-doodle-doo." Miciah, after one of D's prayers, said, "Someone needs to teach D how to pray." And I thought, "No, Miciah should pray like that." :)

Thacker Family Stuff

Other than that, our lives are normal and boring, as we'd like them to be for a while. Before the T family came in town, we spent quite a bit of time with the Thacker family. G is off on his mission now. D, a brother-in-law, got really sick around the same time as all the family stuff. He was in the hospital for a week +, and now is home with some in-home nursing care. To help C deal with all this, we scattered the kids. The 2 older kids went with Mom and Dad Thacker to Nauvoo, and I took A, who just barely turned 1. She was a little clingy, but was fun to have for the few days we had her. We took her on a Thursday night and returned her on Sunday, when we drove up and spent time with the family. It was nice to be able to help C out. She often needs help and there's not much that I can do to help, so this was something I could do. And I think Mom and Dad T enjoyed having another "grandbaby" to love on. They sure did a good job loving on her.

So we're just taking some breathing time. Random Thacker family members will probably be coming down to visit us in the next little while, which is fine with us. Our next big outing will be August 11-13, when Rob and I go as chaperones to Youth Conference in Nauvoo! We're really excited about it.

A Raise!

Oh, we got our raise. Next pay period, starting October (I think), they'll be paying us monthly, but for now they paid us in one lump sum. It covers the same period (meaning, we got August, Sept, and October's paychecks), but they paid us early (usually we get paid on the 1st, so we got our normal paycheck on July 1st, and then this lump sum right now, instead of Aug. 1st), so we feel really rich right now. They don't take out any taxes, either, so it'll be interesting to learn a new way to manage our money.

Pre-School

And Miciah is for sure going to preschool in the fall. I was back and forth on the whole preschool thing. But it panned out, and I think Miciah will LOVE it. She's so social that I think it'll be a great outlet for her. Not that she "needs" preschool, but I think she's going to really like it.

We love you all. Take care.

Tamra and Rob
and kids

P.S. to J: Your letters rock! Thank you for sending the postcard to Miciah. She loves it. And thanks for the e-mails. I learn a lot from you.